Lions and Tigers and Other Cool Cats

The cool cat would be me. *nod nod*

So lots of my person's family came to visit us this summer. They weren't really visiting us specifically, more like visiting Southern California. Which is good because we don't have room for that many people and I hate giving up my room. While they were here, they went on all sorts of adventures. Finally! Usually more of my person's relatives means more dorkiness but this time they actually did cool stuff. My person says that there's enough stories that us three have to share. Whatever. Edmund is ridiculously excited about his post. Something about a really big fish.

Anyway, one of their adventures was going to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Usually, I don't like these types of things because they're educational, but this place was pretty cool. There's the usual stuff like lions:

I totally got my napping technique from them. My person also has this thing about ugly birds.

Apparently, these are super-endangered or something.

But the hands-down coolest part was a bus trip through this big open-air exhibit. The animals aren't in cages. They're just roaming with around each other like animals are supposed to. They do keep the eaters separate from the eaten, which is probably a good idea. This guy is a great big rhino and he's totally letting a antelope looking thing push him around!

Edmund tries to do that sometimes with our food bowl and I just ignore him. Dude! You're like four times his size! You can take him!

There was lots of other cool stuff, too! Like gorillas with wigs:

And baby elephants. My person thought they were adorable. I think they're funny looking.

So, way less lame than usual. She'll probably spend the next three months inside just to make up for it. *rolls eyes*

Dude! She did it again!!!

We've only posted like twice in the last couple of months and both posts were by Edmund. Edmund is cool and all but he's not the only cat here. I tried to tell her so I could post too, but oh no, she had papers to write and essays to grade and TGWWGA kept wanting to talk to her. Sheesh! What about us, huh? What about our blog?!?

Anyway, she's mostly done with school now. She still has some essays to grade and I'm doing my best to help her with them so that summer break can start (party!). Every time she opens the grade sheet, I hit some buttons for her. What student wouldn't want an R? Or maybe a Q? Everyone else want A's and B's and who wants to be like everyone else? Posers, that's who. She says the professor she's working for this quarter won't go for that kind of creativity but I don't know. Any guy who has his students watch Edward Scissorhands, Metropolis, and Akira sounds like someone who thinks outside the box to me.

Oh, I'm supposed to tell you that she's done taking classes. Apparently, she's not done with school just with the going to school part. Weird, I know, but that's what she says. It sounds like she'll be spending a lot more time around here for the next year studying for a big test. On one hand, that means she can scratch my ears more often and maybe I'll finally get to post more than once every few months. On the other hand, I'm not sure if less getting out of the house is what she needs. I'm pretty sure normal people go places.

Speaking of how weird my person is, last quarter she abandoned us to go to a science fiction conference. So what is she doing at the end of this quarter? Staying home and paying attention to me? No. Getting a life? Of course not. She's going to ANOTHER science fiction conference. That's right, two get-together's with other nerds in three months. There's really is no hope for her, is there?

At least she's taking TGWWGA with her this time. Wait, does that mean he's not TGWWGA anymore since he's going away? Whatever. I'm not changing the name now.

I'm ready for my close up!

I'm a movie star! No, really! Look!

That's me!

When we very first came to California, we stayed with Mommy's aunt and uncle. I don't really remember much cause I spent a lot of time hiding in the corner. I'd been trapped in a car with the Monster for four days! I was traumatized!

Anyway, the reason Mommy's aunt and uncle live in California is cause her aunt works for Dreamworks. She was so impressed by me and my frolicking (and hiding) that she asked Mommy to send her pictures and videos of me for a project her company was working on. I did my best to be adorable.

It had a very silly name- Shrek: The Final Chapter. What kind of a name is Shrek? Maybe it's a type of food? I wonder if it's yummy?

O.o Dante just said that Shrek is a monster. And not a sometimes-okay monster like our Monster but a real one! Eeek!

*peeks out from around the corner* Is it safe to come out now?

The Shrek movies all have a really cool cat character. He has boots! And a hat! And a Spanish accent! So cool! Why don't they name the movie after him instead of the monster? Who wants to go see a movie about a big, green ogre? Cats are much nicer and less scary. *nod nod nod*

For the new movie, the Dreamworks people wanted there to be even more of Puss in Boots to love. Just like me! And now he's on movie posters and commercials and the Internet and I'm famous! The first time Mommy saw the movie trailer on the television she picked me up so I could see it, too. He even has to roll around before he gets up like I do!

Mommy says that we're not sure how much of the stuff we sent they actually used and we didn't really send that much. They probably had pictures and stuff of other cats, too. But I don't care. Without me he would not be nearly as awesome. I'm a movie star!

I didn't go the premier cause Mommy said they wouldn't let her smuggle me in. But she wouldn't have had to smuggle me! Just hold me up next to the poster and they'd realize I was in the movie. I didn't know about the monster part, though, so maybe it's a good thing I didn't go. I would've been too scared. But you should all go! It may have a monster but it also has a cat with sword and boots and looks like me!

Eeeek!

This time Mommy left us but she didn't take the Monster with her. Instead she left us home alone with HIM!!! I hid under the bed a lot.

Even though I totally would've fit in Mommy's suitcase (she didn't need all those clothes, anyway), it's probably a good thing I didn't go. I thought she was just going to go to a nice hotel and meet nice people and have a nice time. She did that too, but while she was there she went with some of her friends to some place called Gatorland. Why?! Look at those teeth! They're huge!

Dante says that isn't really a gator, it's just a pretend gator mouth. But still! Big pointy teeth! I'm staying under the bed.

Anyway, I guess Gatorland has been around for like 50 years as a place where people come see alligators (gators is another word for alligator). 50 years is a long time! That's like a million years in cat years!

And it's full of alligators! Look!

Don't let those birds standing right by the gator fool you into thinking it's safe. Birds have wings. Kitties do not. Also, gators like water. They practically live in it! That's a bad sign right there.

There are even little bitty gators there. I might be able to beat up one of them (I have claws!), but there's like a million of them with a gazillion sharp little teeth!

While they were there, Mommy and her friends saw an alligator wrestling show. That's right. People actually wrestle alligators. Why would you do something like that?!? Mommy was smart and stayed on the other side of a railing and took pictures.

This just proves that Monsters are crazy. I don't care what Spanky says. They even taught the gators to jump up out of the water for food! O.o

This just has bad idea written all over it.

There's also a petting zoo at Gatorland that has deer and goats and stuff. I'm not sure if I like goats, but they seem nicer than gators. Less teeth. One of the deer did eat Mommy's friend's map, though. I didn't know maps were edible.

Mommy says she had fun, but I don't know. Wouldn't it have been even more fun to stay at the hotel and take a nap? Or even better, to stay at home and scratch my ears?

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar

Since we won't be able to post for awhile, I want to make sure I give a shout out to my friend Hammy. That's him in the picture. He stayed with us over Christmas Break while his people were out of town. It was pretty crazy having 4 cats in the house, but Hammy is cool so it was ok.

I wasn't sure at first if I was going to like him. He was a little too enthusiastic. I'm generally pretty easy going, but he came bounding up to me the first night and touched his nose to mine. Whoa! Too much, dude, too much. He was still pretty young, though, so it's understandable. I took him under my wing err.. paw and showed him the ropes and he settled down.

It took forever to get the others to like him. Edmund would just sit and meow at him. Edmund can meow really loud. Like hear him across the house loud. I think Edmund was worried that if me and Hammy were friends, I wouldn't be Edmund's friend anymore. Which was silly. But that's Edmund for you. Always worrying about stuff. I got him to see reason eventually and then we could all three play together.

Spanky never really warmed up to Hammy. Big surprise there. Spanky is so grumpy! He kept grumbling about "too many kittens" and "I'm not raising another whippersnapper." Srsly. Edmund and I aren't kittens! Anyway, Hammy learned to just avoid Spanky and it all was good.

Just to show you want a cool dude Hammy is, here he is on New Year's Eve in the liquor cabinet. I didn't even know my people had a liquor cabinet.


Even though it was New Year's Eve, we couldn't convince my person to give us any bubbly to ring in the new year. Lame! *eye roll*

P.S. My person picked out the title. She says it relates to Hammy's real name. Whatever. Hammy is a much cooler name than Hamlet.

It never ends!

My person has told me that this will probably the last time she can let us use the computer for awhile. Apparently, she has to write more papers or something. She just wrote papers! How can it be time to do it again?! Srsly not cool. Anyway, we did get to post some stuff. Not much, but it's better than the 4 months of nothing last time.

I would be more ok with this if it wasn't for her other reason for needing the computer. At the end of the term she's going to Orlando. At first I thought this was good because she's finally going on a real Spring Break. That would be so cool!

I shoulda known better.

She is going to Orlando for a conference on, get this, science fiction. Science fiction!!! What is wrong with her?!? Apparently, this is a big deal meeting for people who like to study science fiction. Why would you do that? Why get all the dorks together in once place? I mean, it gets them to leave the cool people alone, but all it really does is give them a chance to trade ideas on how to be even more dorky. Gargh!

*sighs* She is really excited about it, though. It means she's even more stressed out than usual, and I think it means we're going to get left with TGWWGA again. She says it will only be for a few days. I guess I can ignore him for that long if this trip is that important to her.

I am totally getting cat hair all over her stuff before she goes, though.

Umm...I don't think the floor is supposed to be squishy...

We've been having lots of adventures in California, but we didn't even have to leave the house for the last one! I love it when we stay here where my food dish is! Two weeks ago, Mommy came home and discovered that the living room and closet floor was all wet. A pipe had burst and was soaking everything! O.o

The Monster wasn't home so Mommy had to figure out how to turn off the water and move everything out of the way all by herself. I would've helped since I'm a good kitty, but my poor feet kept getting wet from all the water. Poor feet.

Apparently, to fix leaky pipes, you need to call lots and lots of other monsters. I'm glad they made the floor not squishy anymore, but I wish they hadn't been so scary. First, a monster came to fix the pipe. He said it would only be a few minutes but it took him two hours. That's a long time to hide under the bed! Meanwhile, another monster showed up to start drying the floor. He wasn't here long, but he left these great big fans behind. They were really loud and made the carpet move up and down. I did not like that all. The floor is supposed to stay still!

The fans had to stay on for days and days and once the floor was done, it was time to dry the walls. Apparently, there's something bad in our walls called asbestos so they had to take out all the wet parts instead of drying them. I wonder if asbestos is a type of monster? I was glad at first (no more fans!) but it turned out it meant that even more monsters had to come to our house. They sealed off the whole area with plastic and put on special suits and masks. Monsters are scary enough without masks!

Now that they're gone, there are all these fun holes in the wall! I can walk right into the closet even if the door is shut. Mommy did block off the crawl space under the stairs. I don't know why, though, it looked like a pretty fun place to play.

The closet is pretty awesome, but what's even better is that I can join Mommy in the bathroom whenever she closes the door with me on the other side. She was so happy to see me when I popped out from underneath the sink the first time, she jumped!

Nothing was ruined because Mommy caught it in time but lots of stuff, including my food dish, is upstairs now. It's great! I don't have to go downstairs and leave Mommy to eat my dinner anymore. Soon, there will be even more of me to love!

Spanky says that there is still more work to do downstairs. More monsters will have to come fix the walls and the carpet. I don't see why they want to fix the walls. Frolicking in the coat closet is fun!

P.S. That last picture is a picture of Spanky, not me (you can see Dante and me in the background). Mommy says I need to learn to be cute when she has the camera ready.